Michael Crichton's adaptation of the famous Beowulf tale
released in 1976 lead to the production of an adventure film in 1997
called Eaters of the Dead directed by John McTiernan. Due to
problems with the film during test screenings, Crichton took over the
project and made various changes. The final film, released in 1999 as
The 13th Warrior after several delays, is basically a film about the
clash of the middle eastern and the Viking culture around AD 922. The
Arab courtier Ahmad Ibn Fadlan is sent to the barbaric north and
involuntarily teams up with a band of Vikings to fight a terrifying
evil called Wendols. The nice story made The 13th Warrior a decent adventure
film but if you believe some reports and opinions of people involved
with the project, the final film is far away from McTiernan's original
concept due to re-cuts and changes made by Crichton. Veteran actor Omar
Sharif was so terribly disappointed by the final film that he
temporarily retired from acting.

The score:

One of the major changes made by
Crichton was the rejection of Graeme Revell's score. It was then Jerry
Goldsmith's task to provide the film with the necessary adventurous
tone. Crichton and Goldsmith already collaborated several times before
on films like Coma (1978), The Great Train Robbery (1979)
and Runaway (1984) and Crichton himself stated in the liner notes
that he thought 'the only person to score it was Jerry Goldsmith'. How
right he was!

The score consists of two crucial
musical signatures: Arabian melodies and instruments in the
orchestration representing the ethnicity of Ahmad Ibn Fadlan and heavy
Nordic tones for horns, male choir and percussion representing the
Vikings. Goldsmith is one of the veterans when it comes to the integration
of ethnic (especially Arabian) tones into his usual orchestral music and
thus The 13th Warrior reallybenefits from Goldsmith's
ability to express the clash of cultures musically. Tracks like "Sword
Maker" are a nice example for that, when the heavy Viking music is
interrupted by the Arabian instrumentation with tender and playful flute
performances.

It is interesting to hear the score
following the change of setting during the film. At the beginning when
we get to know Ahmad and his story the Arabian influence dominates the
music as it can be heard in the tracks "Old Bagdad" and "Exiled". As
soon as the journey to the north begins, the heavy tones for the Vikings
are starting to take over the score in the track "Semantics" while there
are still occasional integrations of Arabian ethnic sounds for the Arab
character Ahmad. The themes in this score are of a rather simple nature.
The rude and brutal Vikings have a kind of heroic but slow-paced and
heavy horn fanfare while the elegant Arab has a more tender motif mostly
for flutes and strings reminiscent of the love theme from Goldsmith's
other adventure score from that year The Mummy. The evil Wendols
are represented by another horn fanfare though it sounds more brutal
than the one for the Vikings. Another motif in the score is used for the
fog performed by only by flutes that foreshadows the arrival of the
Wendol.

These motifs perfectly supplement each
other especially during the striking action cues like "Viking Heads",
The Horns Of Hell", "The Fire Dragon" and "Valhalla/Viking Victory".
Fans of Goldsmith doing thrilling but dark action cues with lots of
percussion, brass and whirling strings will certainly love The 13th
Warrior. It is really one of the darkest adventure scores ever
created by the composer along with The Shadow (1994) or The
Mummy from the same year though The 13th Warrior is somewhat
superior to the other two, mainly because there are no lengthy tracks of
rather uninteresting suspense music as there were in The Mummy.
There are cues of suspense music such as "Eaters of the Dead", "Cave of
Death" or "Underwater Escape" but they consist of interesting ideas and
never become repetitive or boring.

Review by Andreas Creutzburg

RATING:

Score as heard in the film:
88%

Score as heard on CD:87%

TOTAL:
88%

The
presentation:

This is one of the few occasions where a Varese Sarabande
album is running longer than 30 to 40 minutes. A wealth of 54 minutes of
score is included on this CD. The 6 page booklet contains very kind
words by Michael Crichton about Jerry Goldsmith and his music and also
contains images from the film (in black and white though). There is a
bootleg with all the music from the film but you won't need it because
this official release contains every important moment of score and does
not leave out anything crucial.

Presentation by
the Label:79%

Summary:

Clearly one of Jerry Goldsmith's last
great adventure scores from the 90's which is musically superior to his
other, more famous adventure score for The Mummy from the same
year. Goldsmith perfectly managed to express the clash of cultures in a
very interesting musical way. The action cues are striking and just as
dark as they are exciting while the entire score never gets boring
during the nice running time of 54 minutes. Sadly, the composer was not
able to compose an equally impressive adventure score again before his
untimely passing in 2004. Many people complained that this score is too
similar to The Mummy, but I would say that this is better than
The Mummy... It's The 13th Warrior! Recommended!